


travel wherever how far

by ace_verity



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DC Extended Universe
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, and the eighth is night swimming in a motel pool, everyone knows they're dating except them, helena and dinah being gay in twelve states, introducing the sixth love language: crayfish hunting, not that they admit it, the seventh is sharing fruit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_verity/pseuds/ace_verity
Summary: “Get some rest, kid. You need it. Big day tomorrow, after all.”“What the hell are you talking about?”“You gotta convince Crossbow to take a vacation with you. Think that’ll be easy?” Renee snorts. “As if.”---Dinah, Helena, and the Great American Road Trip.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli & Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 42
Kudos: 188





	travel wherever how far

**Author's Note:**

> This was super fun (and surprisingly kind of challenging) to write — I hope you enjoy the end result!
> 
> cw: non-explicit sex, brief misogynistic language, swearing
> 
> Title from [California](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK1YiArMDfg) by Lana Del Rey.

It’s a bad night, the worst in a whole string of bad nights, because when it’s over, the Birds don’t go back to their apartments or to a dive bar to celebrate. Instead, they’re in their warehouse headquarters: Renee in a battered armchair, eyeing her flask; Helena in the bathroom taking a shower; and Dinah at the sink, scrubbing blood — Helena’s blood, of course — off her hands and desperately needing a drink. 

It’s a bad night because Helena, stubborn and reckless as usual, had decided to take on five goons at once and gotten a gash across the temple and some hideously bruised ribs for her troubles, and because Dinah had seen the blood dripping down Helena’s face and lost her concentration long enough to miss the thug pointing a gun at her — if Renee hadn’t seen and fired her own pistol, things would have gone to shit very quickly.

 _Bad,_ Dinah thinks, doesn’t even begin to cover it. 

Twelve stitches later, Helena’s stopped bleeding all over the damn place and is now showering despite Dinah’s admonitions not to get her stitches wet.

“We gonna talk about that shitshow back there?” Renee asks, and Dinah’s never been more grateful for the stash of whiskey under the sink, because she’s going to need it for this conversation.

“What’s there to say?” Dinah replies dryly, pouring out two fingers of whiskey and sitting in the (equally battered and very mismatched) armchair opposite Renee’s. The whiskey both burns and soothes her throat as she knocks it back in one go and sinks back against the cushions. God, she’s tired. “It was a bad fight. We’ll do better next time.”

“I sure fucking hope so.” Renee pins her with a stare. “Because that shit can’t keep happening. You two, falling over each other like a pair of martyrs —”

“For fuck’s sake, Renee —”

“ — You know it’s true. I don’t know if she’s showing off, or what the hell her deal is, but this wasn’t the first time I was the one trying to haul your sorry asses to safety before the cops showed up.”

It’s true, and Dinah’s retort dies in her mouth. 

Renee must see the resignation on her face, because she softens. “Hey. We’re doing good work, cleaning up this city. We’re a great team, alright? But the last thing I would want is to lose you — either of you. Or, God forbid, have to choose between you if it came down to it. You hear?”

Dinah nods. “I know.”

“And whatever’s going on between you two —”

“It’s nothing,” Dinah says forcefully, voice rising enough that for a moment she worries that Helena could hear through the bathroom door. “Nothing’s going on, Renee,” Dinah repeats, quieter this time.

“Bullshit,” Renee tells her. “She went down tonight, and I’ve never seen you so shook up. Like the ground was yanked out from under you. Thank Christ I saw that asshole aiming at you, otherwise we wouldn’t be much of a team right now. You didn’t see her last month, when that Sardinicci thug knocked you out. She went absolutely berserk, mowing down guys left and right to get to you.”

Dinah swallows down an ache in her throat. She remembers that night, waking up back in the warehouse to find Helena at her side, holding a glass of water in one hand and an ice pack in the other, dark eyes wide and fearful. 

“I don’t want to interfere —”

Dinah makes a noise of amusement, because _interfering_ is Renee’s favorite pastime.

Renee glares at her, but there’s no heat behind it, and continues, “But you two need to figure it out, alright? Get out of the city for a while, clear your heads.”

“Out of the city?” Dinah frowns. “That really necessary, Renee?”

“When’s the last time you took a weekend to just breathe? No fighting, no nothing.”

Dinah doesn’t say anything, which is an answer in itself — she can’t remember, for the life of her. Certainly not since they took down Sionis.

“Exactly.” Renee jerks her head at the closed door of the bathroom. “Think she’s any better? Kid probably hasn’t taken a day off since she was nine years old. She’s gonna run herself into the ground if she’s not careful. I’m no Doctor Harleen Quinzel, but even I know that Helena’s coping mechanisms ain’t exactly healthy.”

 _Pot, meet kettle,_ Dinah thinks but doesn’t say. Renee has a point, though. “What about you? You comin’ with?”

“Hell no.” Renee’s reply is immediate and certain. “Don’t need to get mixed up in your gay shit. Uh-uh.”

Dinah rolls her eyes but ignores Renee’s jab. “Well, you need a break, too.”

Renee seems to debate for a moment with herself, then finally says, “Ellen has a place up in Connecticut. Invited me up for a long weekend. Don’t give me that look,” she warns, and Dinah raises her hands in surrender.

“Good for you, Renee. Seriously.”

“Thanks,” Renee tells her, a smile tugging at her mouth. “Get some rest, kid. You need it. Big day tomorrow, after all.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You gotta convince Crossbow to take a vacation with you. Think that’ll be easy?” Renee snorts. “As if.”

“Great.” Dinah sighs and closes her eyes.

“She’ll listen to you,” Renee assures her, humor coloring her tone, and Dinah huffs. 

“Sure hope so.”

Predictably, Helena is not easily convinced. 

“Take a break?” she asks dubiously. “For how long?”

“I dunno. Couple days, maybe a week. Depends on where we go.”

“Where would we go?”

“Hell, anywhere. The beach, the mountains, Disneyworld, whatever you want.”

Helena’s brow creases as she thinks. “I… don’t know.”

“Well, that’s alright,” Dinah answers easily. “We can figure it out later. It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know.” Helena shifts on her feet. “What if something happens? In Gotham, I mean.”

“Then Batman and his pals can take care of it. We’re not the only heroes in the city, H, they can cover for us for a few days.” Dinah can tell that Helena’s still reluctant, so she goes for the final play. “It would mean a lot to me, Helena. Everyone needs a break sometimes, alright? I know I do.”

“I don’t need a break,” Helena insists, but it lacks conviction. 

“Well, I do, and I’d like to have you for company.”

“Oh.” Helena nods quickly. “Alright, sure. Let me know, um, what I can do to get ready. And when we’re leaving, and… yeah.”

“You got it,” Dinah responds. “Hey.” She smiles at Helena. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Right, me too.” Helena is definitely blushing now, so Dinah takes pity on her and leaves Helena to sort her knives or count her bolts or whatever assassins do to calm down. 

Dinah has a road trip to plan, after all.

“Think any more about where you want to go?” Dinah asks Helena later that day, once it’s clear that Dinah’s lack of experience in this area might cause difficulty for the planning process.

But Helena just looks at her blankly. “No. I don’t know.”

“Well, what’s your favorite kind of place to go? The ocean, the desert, a different city? Help me out here, H.”

“I don’t know,” Helena repeats, an edge to her voice now. “I don’t travel.”

“You lived in Sicily most of your life.”

“That’s different,” Helena insists. “I mean in America, I’ve never really left Gotham.”

“Never?” Dinah can’t help the disbelief that creeps into her voice. Even when she was a kid, though they hadn’t had much money, her mother would manage a few weekend trips scattered throughout the year — to the beach north of Gotham in the summer, or to New York City a few memorable times. 

“No,” Helena huffs. “If we went on vacation, we didn’t drive. And it wasn’t in America.”

Oh. Dinah can read between the lines — Bertinelli vacations were probably less weekend-in-a-rental and more private-flight-to-Europe. 

“Well, shit.” Dinah thinks for a moment. “Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to see?”

Helena shakes her head, which makes sense; from what Dinah can gather, Helena’s aspirations for most of her life had focused on bloody revenge rather than vacation destinations. 

“How about a little bit of everything, then?” Dinah suggests, the words spilling out before she can really think them through. “We can figure it out as we go. Give you the grand tour of America. Probably not as impressive as what you’re used to, but —”

“No!” Helena cuts in, then swallows. “I mean, that sounds nice. Fine.”

“Alright then.” Dinah flashes a grin at her. “Better start packing.”

The problem is —

Dinah can’t stop thinking about what Renee had pointed out, Renee’s look of doubt when Dinah had tried to insist that there’s nothing between herself and Helena. They’re colleagues — no, friends. They’re friends, now, because it would be stupid to spend a whole summer almost entirely together, planning missions and kicking ass and drinking together and just lounging around doing nothing in particular only to deny that that makes them friends. Dinah has Helena’s back, and she trusts that Helena has hers — Helena’s proven that time and time again, after all — and they get along; therefore, they’re friends.

It works. It’s easy, and nice, and Dinah doesn’t want to fuck that up. 

Except based on what Renee had told her, that’s where she’s headed. Because Dinah can’t deny that there’s something different with Helena — the other night, the bad night, had been proof of that. Time had slowed down the second she’d seen Helena push her way in front of Dinah to intercept those five men, charging them without a second thought, but before Dinah could step in she too was facing down one gang member after another. She’d caught glimpses, one man falling after another, and then everything had happened at once: the flash of a blade, Helena’s noise of pain as she stumbled back — partly from the cut, and partly from the kick to her ribs that had followed — with blood pouring out to cover her face. Dinah’s heart had nearly stopped, and she’d frozen for half a second, torn between continuing the fight and aiding Helena — not long, but long enough to nearly get herself killed.

She knows now that Helena would have been fine if the fight had stretched on a few more minutes — that head wounds bleed a lot, and the gash itself hadn’t hit anything vital — and she knows that they had taken out all but three or four of the remaining thugs by the time Helena had gotten hurt, a number that even just she and Renee could have easily handled. But the second Dinah had seen the blood, it had been like the flip of a switch, the awakening of something fearful and primal as the only thought in her head had become _please, not her too._

It scares Dinah, the fact that she’d lost her usual concentration so suddenly, and the knowledge that had things gone differently — if Renee had been injured as well, or if the thug had pulled the trigger before Renee could reach her own gun — her split-second hesitation could have cost them.

Dinah can handle friendship — there’s enough separation there for it to be safe, enough room to keep walls built up — but _this,_ whatever she feels for Helena — and it’s more than just physical attraction — is dangerous. Uncharted territory, leaving Dinah vulnerable and sparking like a live wire. 

And it’s not like she hadn’t _tried_ to test out the waters. Those first few weeks of working together, Dinah had been dropping hints left and right, making flirtatious remarks and going out of her way to be near Helena, but Helena’s reactions had mostly fallen in the area of oblivious politeness.

So Dinah had dropped it, because she's not about to waste her time and energy pining over someone who doesn't feel the same. Either Helena isn’t interested or isn’t ready to start something, and after all, _just friends_ is a safer bet. Anything more would be a complication. If it were just physical desire, plain and simple, Dinah might have considered a friends-with-benefits arrangement — blow off steam, get rid of the tension, forget about it. But Helena deserves better than that, and Dinah thinks that she herself does as well. She genuinely values Helena’s friendship, and to try anything like that would be too messy, too complicated — and Dinah’s not about to leave herself vulnerable to rejection by someone she actually likes having around, because in the end, that’s where they’d end up.

She’s a grown adult, goddammit, she can handle a few days in a car with an awkward, self-sacrificing ex-assassin who’s her _friend._ Nothing more, nothing less.

Dinah’s bound and determined to keep it that way, because she’s not about to risk her team — and her own heart and sanity — any more than she already has.

Renee leaves with Ellen that Thursday night, and the next morning finds Dinah packed and ready to go, bags piled on the sidewalk outside her apartment building waiting for Helena to arrive. She’s right on time, of course, and Dinah whistles in appreciation at the sight of the rental: a black convertible with its top up.

“Looking good,” she says appraisingly, her attention split between the car and the way Helena takes her suitcase and slings it into the trunk like it weighs nothing. Helena’s actually traded in her usual dated tracksuits for denim shorts, a loose tank top, and Birkenstocks, like a college student on vacation — it’s incongruous enough to nearly seem absurd, and yet oddly endearing. 

Helena steps back and admires the car alongside Dinah. “Yeah, it’s a nice ride. Stylish, right?”

“Damn right.” It doesn’t have quite the same charm as her Jaguar, but it comes close. “You want me to drive first?”

Helena shakes her head. “No, I don’t mind. Hop in.”

Once they’re both in and buckled, Helena starts the engine. “Ready?”

Dinah knows what she’s really saying: _Last chance to back out._

“Ready.”

Helena looks at her for a moment, then nods and puts the car in drive, and within minutes they’re speeding down the city streets.

_new jersey_

Despite going ten miles over the speed limit, Helena drives like a damn drivers ed instructor: hands at ten and two, eyes only leaving the road to check the mirrors, letting Dinah handle the radio and AC controls. The only exception?

Her road rage is off the charts.

She swears _constantly,_ in Italian and English, whenever another car cuts her off or merges without signaling or goes too slow in the passing lane, and even when nobody is actively offending her, she keeps up a quiet muttered stream of low-grade vitriol aimed at the audacity of the other drivers for having the nerve to simply exist in the same space as them. 

Once they’re out of the city, it improves slightly, but Helena’s still tense.

“Relax, alright?” Dinah finally says, after Helena mutters _mangia merde e morte_ at a driver who almost merges right into the side of their car, looking ready to pull out her crossbow. “I can always drive, if you want.”

“I’m fine,” Helena tells her, and as if to prove it she visibly relaxes in her seat, loosening her death grip on the steering wheel and shifting back against the headrest.

“Good.” Dinah turns the radio up and switches to an oldies station, then settles back and props her feet on the dashboard. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Helena’s mouth twitch in a faint smile, and she shrugs. “It’s a rental. Might as well enjoy it.”

“Right,” Helena says, and her smile grows and turns mischievous as she presses down on the accelerator. Dinah laughs, the sound carried away in the wind, and closes her eyes as they leave Gotham miles and miles behind.

_pennsylvania_

_“This_ is a rest stop?” Helena stares at the building in front of them. “It looks like a fucking mall.”

“Pretty nice, right?” Dinah steps out onto the asphalt, stretching the stiffness out of her joints. “Believe me, they’re not all like this. Enjoy it while you can.”

Why the rest stops on this stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike are so fancy is beyond Dinah, but she’s not complaining. Helena isn’t, either, although she’s taking it in with a mix of awe and confusion. Today, on a Friday at noontime, the place is busy, filled with men and women wearing suits and talking on the phone, harried parents shepherding children away from the gift shop, and packs of teenage students huddled in the Starbucks line. 

“Let’s get lunch,” Dinah suggests once they’re both finished in the restroom. “What sounds good? There’s Chinese, KFC, pizza…”

“In a rest stop?” Helena wrinkles her nose.

“Like you said, it’s basically a mall.” 

Helena doesn’t look convinced, so Dinah nudges her along. “Panera alright? It’s usually a safe bet.”

“Sure,” Helena agrees, letting Dinah take the lead.

It’s a nice day, warm and clear, so they take their food outside and find an empty table at the edge of the lawn. Helena perches cross-legged on the bench and takes small bites of her sandwich, observing their surroundings: the steady stream of travelers entering and leaving the rest stop, the family of five having a loud and cheerful picnic a few tables down, and past the building cars flying by on the highway.

“This is nice,” Helena comments after a moment, sounding awkward but genuine, and Dinah nods, breathing in air free of the usual Gotham aroma of car exhaust and wet pavement.

“Right? See, I told you it was a good idea. This is only the start, too,” Dinah adds. “Just wait.”

Helena nods thoughtfully, then glances down at her mostly-eaten sandwich and holds it out. “Did you want to try —”

“All yours,” Dinah assures her, amused — and touched — by the offer.

When Helena finishes, she folds the wrapping into a neat square and does the same to Dinah’s once she’s done as well. Before Helena can stand to dispose of the trash, a thought strikes Dinah.

“Hey, it’s nice enough out. Why don’t we get off the highway and take back roads instead? I’ll take the top off.”

“You’ll —” Helena stares at her in shock. “What?”

“The top of the car.” Dinah laughs. “I don’t put out on the first date, Bertinelli.”

 _Shit._ She hadn’t really meant to imply — “Kidding. I’m messing with you, Helena.”

“Right.” Helena nods, face flushed. “I’ll just —” She stands abruptly and starts purposefully across the lawn.

“Think you’re forgetting something,” Dinah calls after her, pointing toward the neat stack of wrappers on the table.

“Oh, yeah —” Helena collects them in a hurry, and Dinah bites her lip, trying not to let her amusement show.

“Can you grab some snacks while you’re in there?” she asks, keeping her voice light and even. “Whatever you think is best, I trust your judgment.”

“I can do that.” 

Dinah waits until Helena’s through the doors, then heads over to their car to wrestle with the top. It’s easier to fold back than the one on her Jaguar, so as she’s waiting for Helena, Dinah takes the opportunity to apply a light layer of sunscreen. She’s just finishing up, dabbing some on the back of her neck, when she catches sight of Helena, who’s juggling a pair of Starbucks cups and two plastic grocery bags. The grocery bags go in the backseat, and Helena hands Dinah her drink.

“Hey, thanks.” Dinah takes a sip — it’s an iced hazelnut latte, her favorite. “This is perfect, Helena, how the hell did you know?”

“I think you mentioned it a while ago,” Helena answers like it’s nothing, sliding into the passenger seat.

Dinah’s at a loss for words momentarily, so she just says, “Thanks, H,” and sets the drink down. “Hey, you want sunscreen? Might be a good idea, now that the top is down.”

She offers Helena the bottle, but Helena looks at it with unconcealed displeasure. “I’m good, thanks.”

Dinah raises her eyebrows. “Really? How many times has Harley called you a vampire, and you think you won’t get a sunburn?”

“Fine,” Helena grumbles, taking the sunscreen and dabbing a tiny bit on her forehead, nose, and cheeks, looking mutinous as she does. “There.” She caps the bottle and closes it in the glovebox. “Happy?”

“Very,” Dinah responds dryly. 

Helena huffs and makes a show of wiping the residual lotion onto a napkin left over from lunch, then produces a massive folding map that she must have picked up along with the snacks. Dinah has the urge to take a picture, because it’s a hilarious sight: Helena Bertinelli, studying the comically large map with unmatched intensity, the smear of sunscreen on the side of her nose and oversized round sunglasses making her look like a tourist cliche. 

She sees Dinah looking, and her head snaps up. “What?”

“Nothing at all,” Dinah replies, trying not to smile, and starts the engine.

_maryland_

“Want a snack?”

“Sure.”

Helena unbuckles her seatbelt and twists around, reaching into the backseat to retrieve the snacks from the rest stop. “Chips?”

“Thanks.” Dinah picks the jalapeno flavor out of the options Helena shows her and holds the steering wheel between her knees for the moment it takes her to open the bag, ignoring Helena’s raised eyebrows and popping a chip in her mouth. “What are you gonna have?”

“Sunflower seeds.” And Helena pulls out the biggest bag of sunflower seeds Dinah’s ever seen in her life — it has a resealable top and everything. She swallows her mouthful of jalapeno chip too fast, and her eyes water. 

“What the hell?” she manages once she can breathe again. “I guess you like sunflower seeds, huh?”

“Yeah, they’re good.” Helena then takes a whole handful of sunflower seeds, shells still on, and tosses them in her mouth, and Dinah is struck by the horrible thought that Helena might actually _eat the shells,_ like a goat or something.

But no — she just works her mouth for a minute, then starts spitting shells, one by one, out the side of the car. It’s weirdly fascinating, and after a few moments Helena finishes with that batch of seeds and starts in on a new handful.

“I have never seen anyone eat sunflower seeds like that,” Dinah finally says.

“Like what?” Helena frowns, then furrows her brow in concentration as she cracks another shell between her teeth.

“Like… so many at once. How the hell — you know what, I don’t want to know.” Dinah bites back the automatic joke that comes to mind, about _what else can you do with your mouth,_ because they are _friends,_ goddamn it. 

“Want some?” Helena holds out the bag. 

“You know, I think I’ll pass.”

_west virginia_

By late afternoon, one look at Helena makes it clear that her decision to forego sunscreen on her bare arms and legs was unwise — she’s pink with sunburn and obviously trying to hide her discomfort. So Dinah pulls into the parking lot of the next motel they come across, figuring that they’ve done enough driving for one day. 

The woman at the desk looks almost surprised to see them walk through the door, which probably isn’t a great sign. She’s wearing a flannel shirt and jeans despite the warmth of the day, and she puts aside her novel and smiles at them. “Hi, welcome.”

“Hi. We’ll take a double, please.” Dinah glances at Helena to make sure that’s alright, and Helena tilts her head agreeably, so Dinah figures it’s fine.

“One bed?”

“Two,” Dinah quickly corrects.

The woman looks between them, eyebrows raised skeptically. “Uh-huh. Well, I can check you in, and then show you to your room.”

Dinah thanks her, vaguely unsettled by the clerk’s amused, knowing way of looking at the two of them, and soon they’re settled in the room — it’s outdated, but clean, which is all that really matters. 

“I think you got some sun, Helena,” Dinah remarks as she sets her suitcase on the rickety luggage rack. It’s an understatement — the burn is even more obvious in the lighting of the hotel room. 

Helena looks like she wants to deny it, but she just sighs. “Yeah, you were right.”

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you,” Dinah teases.

“I said you were right.” Helena rolls her eyes. “I’ll wear sunscreen tomorrow.”

“Good. Hey, why don’t I see if there’s a pharmacy in town? They might have some lotion or something that’ll help. I can pick up dinner while I’m there.”

“Do you want me to come with?”

Dinah shakes her head. “You should probably stay out of the sun for the rest of the day. Take a cool shower, that’ll help. I won’t be long.”

“Thanks,” Helena says, glancing up from searching through her duffel, a smile crossing her face briefly. 

When Dinah enters the motel lobby — if it can even be called that — the desk clerk glances up from her book. “Need towels?”

“No, I —” It throws her off momentarily, so she shakes her head. “Is there a pharmacy in town?”

“Half a mile down the road.” There’s a glint in the woman’s eyes that seems weirdly familiar as she continues, “It’s got everything you might need.”

Dinah looks at her, because it sounds a bit like she’s insinuating — but the woman smiles blandly, and Dinah lets it go.

“Thanks.”

“Enjoy your stay,” the clerk calls, and Dinah waves without turning back around. Five minutes down the road, she realizes where she’s seen that knowing look — it’s the same exact one that Renee always has when she looks between Dinah and Helena. Dinah groans at the realization, vaguely annoyed — because really, can’t they just be friends without everyone making assumptions? It doesn’t make Dinah’s life any easier, that’s for sure. 

_It doesn’t matter,_ she tells herself, and by the time she reaches the pharmacy she’s almost managed to convince herself.

By the time Dinah gets back to their motel, the sun is already behind the hills, casting everything in an ethereal golden twilight. She’d expected silence out here in the country, without the constant din of cars and sirens and bickering neighbors that’s a soundtrack to everyday life in Gotham, but she’s surprised to find herself proven wrong. Birds chirp, and leaves rustle in the gentle breeze, and cicadas drone loudly in the trees. It’s calming, even more than she’d expected it to be, and she tries to memorize every detail as she walks, soaking it in as if she’ll be able to sink back into the peace of the evening once they’re back in the city.

Not that Dinah is in any hurry to return — she could get used to this, could savor it for at least a few more days.

She opens the door to find Helena sitting cross-legged on the bed, squinting at the TV; Helena straightens up when she sees Dinah, eyes landing on the shopping bag from the pharmacy and the takeout bag in Dinah’s other hand — burgers from the lone diner in town. Her hair is damp from the shower and curlier than normal, frizzing a bit, and she accepts the takeout box Dinah hands her with a smile of thanks.

They don’t bother moving to the table in the corner, instead opting to eat perched across from each other on their beds. The burger is surprisingly good, and once they’re finished and the wrappings are in the trash, Dinah tosses the bottle of aloe lotion to Helena.

“Should help a bit,” Dinah tells her. “Better than nothing.”

“Thanks.” Helena uncaps the bottle and dabs a bit on her arm experimentally, then adds more once it seems to help. 

Dinah busies herself with unpacking, laying out what she’ll need to shower, until a quiet noise from Helena catches her attention. Her face is set in a tight grimace, and she’s attempting valiantly to reach the sunburned spot at the top of her back. It takes a moment for Dinah to remember the large bruise that covers Helena’s ribcage, which is surely hindering her now.

“Here, I can help,” she offers, crossing the room and holding her hand out for the bottle. Helena hands it over, avoiding Dinah’s gaze; the ointment is cool on Dinah’s fingers as she rubs it in light circles at the base of Helena’s neck on the inflamed skin there. 

It’s not like Dinah’s never touched Helena before — fist bumps and pats on the back after a successful fight are second-nature, and the evidence of Dinah’s handiwork is still present on the line of stitches running along Helena’s hairline. This is different, though — intimate in a way that seems to pull the air out of the room, making Dinah hyperaware of the feeling of Helena’s skin against her fingertips and of the way Helena’s breath stutters and stops at the contact.

It sends off warning sirens in Dinah’s mind, and she hurries to finish, fingers slipping a bit in her haste as she pulls away and takes a steadying breath. She replaces the cap on the bottle, nearly dropping it.

“Better?”

“Uh, yeah. Thank — thank you.”

“Sure.” There’s a kind of tension in the air, now; Helena glances at her for half a second before fumbling for the TV remote, focusing unnecessarily hard on changing the channel — first to an infomercial for some kind of blender, then to — porn. Dinah bites her lip, watches Helena squint at the screen in confusion until it hits her.

“Oh my — shit. Fuck.” Helena almost drops the remote in her haste to change the channel, blushing furiously and stabbing at the buttons until the picture changes to static. 

Dinah laughs, and after a moment the mortification on Helena’s face gives way to embarrassed amusement, and she too cracks a smile.

“God, wait until Renee hears about this. She’ll never let you hear the end of it.”

“Don’t you dare tell her,” Helena tells her. “I mean it.”

“Yeah, okay, Killer.” Dinah shakes her head and gathers up her clothes and toiletry bag, stopping just short of the bathroom door to look at Helena. “Find us something to watch, alright? Nothing x-rated this time.”

“It was an accident!” 

“Sure it was.” Dinah smirks and closes the bathroom door behind her — though not before catching one last glimpse of Helena blushing and sputtering in protest.

“Where are we going tomorrow?” Helena asks later, sitting cross-legged on her bed and studying the map unfolded in front of her.

“I don’t know,” Dinah murmurs, attention mostly glued to the television, which is playing _Scrubs_ reruns. After a moment, she realizes that Helena’s waiting for elaboration, so she turns to look at her. “We don’t really have to plan. It’s nice to be spontaneous sometimes, don’t you think?”

Helena frowns, looking down at the map then back to Dinah. Clearly, she isn’t convinced — which makes sense, based on what Dinah knows of Helena, whose whole life seems governed by routine. 

“Hey, we can figure it out now if you want,” Dinah continues. “Sometimes part of the fun is just — letting shit happen as it comes, you know?”

Helena seems to mull it over for a moment, then says decisively, “I can be spontaneous,” and folds up the map as if to prove her point.

“Alright, great," Dinah replies with a nod. Helena nods back and turns her attention to the television screen, and after a moment, Dinah does the same.

When they leave in the morning, the same woman is at the desk; the only evidence that she’d moved at all overnight is the fact that she’s wearing a slightly different flannel shirt and reading a new book.

“Have a _great_ trip,” she drawls when they hand in their keys, meeting Dinah’s eyes unflinchingly with that same bland smile.

“You too,” Helena replies automatically, then blushes, and Dinah can’t help the fond grin that crosses her face. She tries to hide it, though, because she doesn’t want to see that desk clerk get any more smug.

Dinah’s pretty sure the clerk watches the pair of them as they leave, muttering something under her breath once they’re nearly at the door — but Dinah doesn’t know what, and she’s sure as hell not about to ask.

_kentucky_

“Up here,” Dinah says, leaning forward to peer out the windshield. “Pull over.”

Helena doesn’t question, just flips on the turn signal and steers onto the grassy patch at the side of the road, next to a rundown fruit stand. Farther back from the road is a farm, complete with cows grazing in a pasture, a red barn, and a tall grain silo.

There’s a cat curled in a bushel basket next to the table. It opens its eyes long enough to fix them with an unimpressed stare then evidently decides that they are of little interest.

“From out of town?” The woman behind the table looks them over, taking in their appearance with friendly curiosity. “Best peaches in the state, guaranteed.”

Dinah picks one up, rolling experimentally in her palm. It’s bigger than her fist and warm from the sun, heavy with juice and perfectly ripe. Everything on the table looks incredible: massive blackberries, pints of blueberries lined in neat rows, rich red strawberries.

“What looks good to you?” Dinah asks Helena.

She contemplates the table before answering, “Anything.”

“Very helpful,” she mutters sarcastically, grinning at Helena to let her know she’s only joking, then clears her throat and says, “Four peaches, please.”

Helena looks at her questioningly, and Dinah shrugs. “Two for now, two for later.”

They pay, and as the woman hands Dinah her change and tucks the peaches in a paper bag, she says, “Go on, sit by the mill pond if you want. Sure you’ve spent long enough in the car.”

“Thanks,” Dinah replies, and with a glance at Helena to confirm, adds, “I think we will.”

They follow the woman’s directions down a worn dirt path, past the cows — which takes a moment, as Helena slows down to watch them curiously. Most of the cows regard them with disinterest, but one plods over to the fence, its head extended over the fence a mere foot from Helena. She lifts her hand, a bit tentatively, and carefully places it on the cow’s snout, petting gently.

Dinah doesn’t know why Helena is apparently some sort of livestock whisperer, but she takes a picture — Helena sees and rolls her eyes, but doesn’t protest beyond that — and sends it to Renee and Cass before the cow makes a snorting noise and backs away.

“Lots of farms in Sicily,” Helena says once they’re walking again, and Dinah files that information away with Helena’s other quirks, like the way she lays out her toiletries on the motel sink in order of size and sits cross-legged in the passenger seat of the car. 

The mill pond is just past the cow pasture, glittering in the late morning sun. A duck glides across its surface, and dragonflies hum over the shallows. They sit on the grassy slope just short of the water, and Dinah takes a peach for herself and passes the bag to Helena.

The first bite is even better than she’d expected, filling her mouth with sweetness. Dinah swipes ineffectually at the juice now dripping down her chin and over her fingers and looks over at Helena in time to see her take her first bite. Helena’s eyes flutter shut, and she makes a soft, mumbly noise of pure delight.

“Good, huh?”

“Fucking delicious,” Helena agrees, taking another bite. Her lips glisten in the sunlight, covered with peach juice, and Dinah is momentarily mesmerized by the sight. She wonders suddenly what would happen if she were to kiss Helena right now, if she would taste like ripe fruit in late summer, like the peach she’s eating or maybe even better.

Dinah realizes that she’s staring and tears her gaze away, chastising herself for the thought. Helena seems unaware, thank God, tilting her head back to look at the sky and absently licking at a trail of juice running down her wrist — and _Jesus,_ that doesn’t help Dinah’s train of thought at all.

“I like it out here,” Helena says thoughtfully. 

“Yeah,” Dinah says, and hopes that her smile comes across light, carefree, casual. 

The clouds drift overhead, and when the only remains of their meal are the woody peach pits — Helena keeps examining hers, as if hoping that to find a bit of fruit that she’d somehow missed — and the stickiness of drying juice on their hands, Dinah lies back on the grass, lulled to sleepiness by the warmth of the sun. She folds her hands over her stomach and stares up at the deep blue sky above, and when she senses Helena lie down as well, she closes her eyes and swallows past the sudden ache in her chest.

She didn’t expect _just friends_ to be this goddamn _hard._

_tennessee_

They pass a sign: _Nashville Exit, One Mile._

“Do you want to stay in the city tonight?” Helena asks from the passenger seat. “Nashville’s the one with the music, right?”

“Sure is,” Dinah says, and merges into the right lane. “Yeah, what the hell — beats some backwoods motel.”

They end up in a high-rise hotel with a view of the city — nothing that Dinah would have ever splurged on if it was just her, but Helena is the one who picks it out and hands over her card. Dinah lets out a low whistle when they open the door to a fancy suite, with a door separating the bedroom from the living area, and —

“Is that a damn Jacuzzi tub?” After hours spent in the car, Dinah’s muscles are sore and tense, but she has no doubt that a long bath will help with that.

“Yeah, it’s — Oh.” Helena’s standing in the doorway of the bedroom, brow creased.

“What’s up?”

“I, um.” She steps aside, revealing a spacious bedroom, floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the city and a large bed.

One bed.

“I asked for a double, but I guess — I can ask for a room change, it’s no problem.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Dinah picks up her suitcase again, and Helena lets her pass to set it down next to the bed. “It’ll be just like a sleepover.”

“You sound like Harley,” Helena mutters.

“Oh, God.” Dinah makes a face. “Think she’s blown anything up since we left? Robbed a bank, set a building on fire?”

Helena tilts her head consideringly. “Yeah, probably.” But she relaxes, disappearing momentarily to retrieve her own suitcase. “Are you hungry? We can get room service, or eat — go out to eat.”

“Let’s go out,” Dinah says decisively. She’s never been to Nashville before, and who knows if she’ll ever be back — so why spend the evening in a hotel room? “You up for that?”

“Sure, fine with me. Did you want to take a bath first?” Helena averts her gaze as she asks, as if worried that Dinah will start undressing right then and there. 

“I’ll wait til we get back. Gonna change, though.”

Helena looks down at herself and frowns. “I don’t think this is nice enough, is it?”

Dinah doesn’t care; besides, Helena could probably wear a burlap sack to dinner and still look great. But shorts and a plain shirt might be a little casual. “I have a sundress you can borrow.” She’d bought it years ago and worn it maybe three times before deciding it wasn’t really her style, had thrown it in her suitcase on a whim. 

“Okay, that’s — that would work. Thanks.”

Dinah finds it for Helena and pulls out a nicer outfit for herself as well, a navy striped jumpsuit, and takes it to the bathroom to change. She debates putting on makeup, but in the end decides against it and opens the door.

Helena’s standing in front of the mirror in the living room, plucking at the fabric of the sundress — which fits well, considering the differences in their figures; she whirls around when Dinah comes out. 

She looks, Dinah thinks, _pretty._ Helena’s always fierce, always attractive without even trying, but here — in a borrowed sundress, standing almost shyly in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city — she’s pretty. 

She’s also waiting expectantly for feedback, so Dinah nods approvingly. “Looks good,” she says. “Never seen you in a dress before, Killer.”

“They're not great for missions,” Helena answers dryly, and when Dinah chuckles, Helena smiles too. 

They find a barbecue joint within walking distance of the hotel, and there they split a tray of the best ribs Dinah’s ever had, served with classic Southern sides — macaroni and cheese, fried green tomatoes, collard greens. 

“Where do you want to go from here?” Dinah finally works up the courage to ask once their plates have been cleared away and they’re waiting for the check. The question has been eating away at her all day, and she’s unaccountably nervous for the answer — nervous, she supposes, that Helena will want to call it quits and head back to Gotham.

But her fears are unfounded. “I don’t know,” Helena says slowly, then looks up at Dinah with earnest eyes. “But I don’t want to stop now.”

“Me either.” Dinah’s relieved, more than she’d like to admit, so she grins and adds, “Think Renee misses us yet?”

“Pretty sure she’s busy,” Helena responds, her flat delivery undermined by the amused glint in her eye.

“God.” Dinah makes a face. “Good for her, but — ugh. Not something I want to think about.”

She’d only had one glass of wine with dinner, but even so, she feels unaccountably light as they leave the restaurant and make their way down to the waterfront, passing street musicians and couples walking close, arm-in-arm — the sight makes something melancholy stir inside her, but Dinah presses it down in favor of enjoying the sights and sounds of the city in twilight. 

“We should get a picture,” she says suddenly, because this — this is good. She’ll want to remember this, no matter where they end up going. 

“Oh — okay. The kind we take ourselves, or —”

“It doesn’t have to be a selfie,” Dinah assures her. “Here, I’ll ask —”

The tourist family she approaches is more than happy to take their picture, positioning them so that the lighting is favorable and the river is clear in the background.

“Thank you,” Dinah tells them, and the mother smiles, hands back Dinah’s phone and says in a confidential sort of tone, “You make a lovely couple, by the way. Have a great evening!”

“Oh, we’re not — you too,” Dinah replies, giving up on her attempt to correct the woman, and suddenly she doesn’t feel quite as light.

Once they’re out of earshot, Helena furrows her brow. “Did she think —”

“Yeah.” Dinah laughs, and to her own ears it sounds forced and brittle. “I bet Renee would get a kick out of that. Hey, let’s try and make it to the Parthenon, that might be cool.”

“Okay,” Helena says after a moment, and Dinah wonders if she detects a hint of something — bewilderment, or even disappointment — in her voice. 

But then her eyes land on the half-healed cut on Helena’s forehead, mostly covered by her hair, and remembers — 

She can’t risk this.

It’s well after dark by the time they return to the hotel, and Helena seems to remember Dinah’s desire to take a bath, because she simply says, “I’ll shower in the morning.” So Dinah leaves her sitting cross-legged on the bed, scrolling on her phone, in a tank top and flannel shorts. She briefly considers raiding the hotel minifridge for some cheap liquor, but dismisses the idea — probably better to stay sober if they’re going to be sharing a bed.

The bath is every bit as wonderful as Dinah had hoped, and she stays in the sudsy water until the last vestiges of tension seep out of her muscles and the water turns cool. The lights are off in the bedroom when she opens the door, the curtains closed, and Helena is already asleep under the comforter, curled on her side at the edge of the mattress and facing the wall. 

Dinah sits down on the opposite side, then slips under the sheets, careful not to disturb her and acutely conscious of the distance between them, or lack thereof. Beside her, Helena shifts a bit and sighs, but doesn’t wake.

 _I’ll never be able to fall asleep,_ Dinah thinks ruefully, and yet within minutes she too drifts off.

_arkansas_

They get a late start, thanks to a combination of rush hour traffic and the fact that Dinah slept in late enough that Helena had worked out in the hotel gym, gotten coffee and bagels for them both, and showered by the time Dinah woke up. 

Dinah takes the first shift driving, drumming her fingers against the wheel along to the radio as Nashville fades in the rearview mirror, and beside her Helena suddenly reaches for the glovebox and pulls out the crumpled paper bag from the day before — the remaining two peaches.

“Shit, I completely forgot about those.” Dinah had stowed them in the hotel fridge yesterday evening, but in her hurry to get ready in the morning, she hadn’t remembered to grab them. 

“Here,” Helena says, and she produces a pocketknife from seemingly nowhere and carves a slice out, hands it over before cutting one for herself.

“Thanks.” It’s just as good as the one yesterday, if not better. They eat in companionable quiet, listening to the radio, and the act of sharing the fruit feels affectionate in a way Dinah can't fully explain. Even after the peaches are gone — portioned out neatly by Helena — the sweetness lingers in Dinah’s mouth.

The radio announcer promises high temperatures reaching into the nineties, and by the time they cross into Arkansas, the display on the car dashboard reads 91°F. Even with the air conditioner on high and the top up, the heat is undeniable and inescapable. 

It’s a bit better once they switch drivers and decide to get off of the highway and take state routes instead, thanks to the shade of the trees around them, but even then there’s a strange, syrupy quality to the muggy air that makes it feel like they’re not really moving fast at all. 

The radio goes to static, and Dinah fiddles with the dial and looks up to see that Helena’s turning down a narrow side road, taking them deeper into the woods along a clear, glittering creek, but before she can ask where they’re going Helena puts the car in park and shuts the engine off.

“Too hot,” she says. “Let’s take a break.”

And then she’s out of the car, kicking off her sandals and stepping into the creek without a moment’s hesitation.

“What the fuck — Helena!” Dinah scrambles to unbuckle her seatbelt, following Helena to the edge of the water. “You can’t just —”

“Why not? You told me to be spontaneous.” Helena says it with feigned innocence, but there’s a hint of a smirk on her face. “Come on, it’s nice and cool.” As if to demonstrate, she kicks at the water a bit and wades deeper to the middle of the creek, where the water reaches her knees. 

It’s probably illegal, if they’re on private property — but they’re out of sight of the main road, and the only sound is that of the creek and buzzing insects, and it’s so hot that Dinah’s already beginning to sweat.

“If we get arrested —”

“We’re not going to get arrested,” Helena scoffs. “Dinah. It feels so nice.”

And she moves back to the edge of the creek and holds out her hand.

“Five minutes, and that’s it,” Dinah warns. There’s no way in hell she’s going barefoot — she’ll probably end up with leeches or something disgusting as it is — so it’s a good thing she’s wearing cheap flip-flops that won’t get ruined in the water. 

Helena grins, steadying Dinah as she steps down off the bank. The water is cool and refreshing, Dinah has to admit, and she lets Helena guide her near the middle of the creek.

“See? It’s nice, right?”

“Yeah, whatever.” See, this is the problem — Dinah can’t help herself where Helena’s involved, thinks nothing of stopping mid-fight to check on her, or following her into a creek in the middle of nowhere. It’s an issue that just isn’t going away, even now that they’ve traveled halfway across the country.

Helena doesn’t seem to mind her sarcasm, though; she’s clearly content, tilting her head back to squint at the sky and dragging her fingertips across the surface of the water. But apparently that isn’t exciting enough, because she bends down and stares intently through the water, then reaches down and flips a rock.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dinah asks, watching with a mix of interest and trepidation.

Helena doesn’t say anything, intent and focused, and flips another rock, then a third. She flips a fourth one and grins triumphantly, moving lightning-fast —

“Got it!”

And she holds up an actual, living lobster.

Dinah scrambles back, nearly losing her balance. “Helena, what the _fuck_ —”

“It’s a crayfish,” she says, as if that explains anything. “They’re so cool. Wanna hold it?”

“Hell no —” 

But Helena’s already holding it out, and this time when Dinah steps back, she actually does lose her balance. It was bad enough when she was standing in the creek, now she’s _sitting_ in it, and there are fucking _lobsters_ apparently, and if she gets pinched by a lobster, she’s taking the car and leaving Helena in this stupid creek in the middle of nowhere.

“Oh, shit.” The lobster — _crayfish,_ whatever — is gone, and Helena’s standing over her looking horrified. “Dinah, I’m so sorry. Let me —” Helena makes to pull her up, and Dinah sees her chance.

She takes Helena’s hand and yanks her down, too.

Helena looks shocked for a split second, and Dinah wonders briefly if she’s gone too far —

And then Helena starts laughing and laughing, the way she had when Harley stole Dinah’s car, but this time Dinah doesn’t stop her, just joins in.

It sounds like the setup to a joke — _a metahuman and a Sicilian assassin fall into a creek_ — and that sets Dinah laughing even harder.

They finally collect themselves and make their way back to the bank, standing in the grass in wet clothes. Dinah is missing a shoe, and they take turns changing into clean clothes in the backseat.

“Well? You refreshed now?” Dinah asks dryly.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Helena responds, nodding seriously but with a smile playing across her mouth, and when she starts the engine, Dinah is almost sad to leave.

They probably look a sight, walking into a laundromat in a sleepy Arkansas town with an armful of (mostly wet) clothes, but nobody even gives them a second glance as they load up a machine. Helena sits down on the bench and starts flipping through a home improvement magazine from 1997, and Dinah makes to join her, but her phone buzzes in her pocket with an incoming call.

Helena looks up, eyebrows raised in question, and Dinah swipes to accept the call as she mouths, _Renee._

She goes outside to take the call and regrets it almost instantly, because it’s still hot as hell even now that evening is approaching. 

“Hey, Renee.”

“You take her to bed yet?”

Dinah almost drops her phone and momentarily considers hanging up. “Fuck you.”

“That’s a no, then.” There’s a shuffling noise on the other end, then Renee’s voice returns. “Where the hell are you, anyway?”

“Uh…” Dinah looks around the street to see if the town’s name is anywhere in sight. It isn’t, of course. “Somewhere in Arkansas.”

“You’re in fucking _Arkansas?_ Christ, Dinah, what kind of vacation is that?”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re not _staying_ here.”

“Yeah? Where are you going, then?”

“We’ll know when we get there.”

“My God, you’ve gone crazy. Sound like Jack fucking Kerouac.”

“Did you just call me to insult me, or —”

“Alright, alright. You guys doin’ okay? Need anything?”

“Nah, we’re fine.” Dinah glances at Helena through the window and smiles on reflex when their eyes meet. “Thanks for checking in, though.”

“Yeah, sure thing. You know, at this rate, you might as well go all in, head for the ocean.”

“Maybe.” Dinah contemplates it for a moment — she’s never seen the Pacific, after all, and she doubts Helena has either. “How’s your vacation going?”

“Going splendid,” Renee replies, with a smirk clear in her voice, and Dinah rolls her eyes even as she can’t help herself from smiling.

“Glad to hear,” she says dryly. “You deserve a break.”

“Damn right. And so do you. Stay safe, alright?”

“You worried about us?” Dinah teases.

“‘Course I am, Lance.”

It’s uncharacteristically sincere, and Dinah can’t bring herself to respond with sarcasm. “We’ll be careful,” she promises instead. “Take care, Renee.”

“You too, kid. Tell Helena I said hi.”

And then the screen flashes _call ended,_ and Dinah opens the door.

Helena glances up from her magazine. “Everything good?”

“Yeah, all good. Renee says hi.”

Helena nods, looking back down at her magazine and frowning at whatever hideous nineties style is displayed on the page, and Dinah thinks that she should be tired of this by now — should be bored out of her mind, spending hours in the car talking about nothing in particular with Helena and humming along to the radio, sleeping in motels and eating shitty fast food. And here, in a nowhere town’s laundromat, waiting for their laundry to finish, she should be going crazy, itching to get back to the city.

But she isn’t, and that’s what makes up her mind.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to see the Pacific,” Dinah says, casual as anything, and Helena looks up, a cautious, curious smile beginning on her face.

And just like that, it’s decided.

_oklahoma_

Oklahoma, Dinah decides, is her least favorite state.

It’s relentlessly hot and _flat,_ nothing but sun-bleached grasses stretching out endlessly around them. The sky threatens to swallow them whole.

Out here, the world feels incredibly large, and Dinah feels very, very small. 

The emptiness is unsettling, especially when compared to the bustling thrum of life in Gotham, and despite their best efforts to stave off boredom — changing drivers, putting Spotify on shuffle, trying out a podcast — it’s inescapable and pervasive, and Dinah finds herself wishing for something, _anything,_ to shake things up a bit.

As it happens, she should really be more careful what she wishes for, because just past noon, there’s a _thump_ and a rattle and Helena evenly says, “Fuck,” and steers to the shoulder of the highway and into the grass, stopping just short of the edge of a cornfield.

“Shit, did we just get a flat?”

“Yep.” Helena unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door, and Dinah follows her outside, squinting against the bright sun.

“There’s a spare, right?”

Helena opens the trunk and rummages around, then drags a spare out and sets it on the grass, following it with a tire iron and jack. “I’ll change it.”

Dinah has her phone ready to call the nearest towing company, but she stops. “You sure?”

“Yeah. It’ll take me ten minutes tops. Go ahead and time it,” she adds, and with that she moves to the side of the car and sets up the jack. 

Dinah stands next to her, ready to help, but Helena doesn’t ask for anything other than for Dinah to hold the tire iron as she works. So Dinah waits and tries not to think too hard about how the lines of Helena’s biceps ripple as she works and how nimbly her hands move on the tools, strong yet delicate. It’s almost torturous, so Dinah distracts herself by counting cars on the highway, and she doesn’t even notice when Helena tightens the last bolt until Helena straightens up and shoves a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face and, judging by the state of her hands, probably streaking it with grease.

“Done,” she announces, clearly pleased. “How long?”

Dinah checks the time on her phone, and sure enough, fewer than ten minutes have passed. “Damn, Killer, I’m impressed.”

Helena shrugs modestly. “Well, you were good with — with helping. Holding stuff for me. Very helpful.”

“Thanks,” Dinah tells her, amused. For the most part, Helena’s improved at taking compliments in the months following the night they all met, but she still seems determined to return every compliment with one of her own.

“The spare won’t last long,” Helena tells her once they’re driving again, slower than they had been before. “We should probably find a mechanic in the next town, get it changed there.”

And an hour later they’re in a rundown diner straight out of the 1950s, across the street from the town’s auto shop. The place is exactly as Dinah would have envisioned for a small-town rural diner, down to the Formica tables, pie display, and kitschy waitress uniforms. Country music plays faintly from a radio in the corner, and besides the two of them, there's only the lone, bored waitress and a few truck drivers scattered in booths.

They hadn’t eaten much for breakfast that morning — just muffins and coffee from the motel and snacks in the car — so they order sandwiches. Dinah gets a milkshake too, and Helena’s gaze keeps straying to the pie displays until Dinah finally suggests that she get a piece.

“You miss Gotham yet?” Dinah asks, swirling a french fry in her milkshake.

Helena pauses from dissecting her pie — carefully separating the crust, filling, and whipped cream topping — and looks thoughtful. “Do you?” she counters, evading the question.

“Yeah, a little. It’s nice to get away, though. Quiet, you know?”

Helena nods. “I miss Cass, and Renee, but…” She trails off.

“Do you like living in Gotham?” 

“It’s…” Helena chooses her words carefully. “It’s loud, sometimes. Different from what I remember. Different from Sicily. But there are good things, too.” She smiles a tiny bit, meaningfully, and it makes Dinah relax a bit.

“Where were you gonna go after you finished your list? Before you met us, I mean.”

Helena shrugs. “I didn’t have any plans.”

“You didn’t?” It strikes Dinah as odd — after all, Helena is the most regimented person she knows, or at least she had been before they left the city.

“Didn’t matter much.” Helena neatly spears a bit of pie crust and chews it thoughtfully. 

Her tone is casual, nonchalant, and it makes Dinah’s heart twist in sympathy. She thinks back to what Renee had said, back in Gotham: _Kid probably hasn’t taken a day off since she was nine years old,_ and is struck by a sudden, troubling thought: What if Helena only fights because she doesn’t know anything else? Could she even be happy, with that life?

And now that they’re away from the city, from the endless fight — what would happen, if somewhere along the way, Helena discovers a better option? It feels like a test, suddenly, all the sights they’ve seen — as though Dinah is showing her the world, showing her all the ways she could be living, and giving her a choice. Maybe the first time Helena’s ever really _had_ a choice, and Dinah wonders if it wouldn’t be better to get in the car and turn right around, head back to Gotham and fall into their routines again, because that would mean Helena wouldn’t get to choose anything but the life they’ve been living since they established the Birds of Prey.

Dinah pushes the thought down, feeling ashamed at herself for considering such a thing — because Helena deserves happiness, in whatever form that might be, even if she has to leave Gotham forever to find it. And could Dinah really blame her, if she chose to leave? Dinah knows what it’s like to walk haunted streets, to bear the weight of a lost family and struggle under the burden of a legacy. There had been a time that she’d sworn to escape the city — after her mother’s funeral, then after her graduation, and then once she was back on her feet, and then one day she’d woken up and found that, all the while as she was dreaming of escape, Gotham had pulled her in, and she’d let it.

“Hey.” Helena’s voice breaks into her thoughts. “Want to try?” Helena holds out her fork, slides her plate forward. She studies Dinah carefully, concern etched in her features, and Dinah pushes down the weird, tangled mass of emotions that she’s been silently unraveling.

“Not after you fuckin’ massacred it, Helena. What the hell did you do?” 

“It’s better separate,” Helena informs her.

“Yeah, alright, weirdo.” Dinah takes the fork and scoops up a bit of filling — coconut cream. “Not bad.”

“I like it.” Helena takes the fork back, eats a bit of crust, then whipped cream, then the filling last. 

“Uh-huh.” Dinah stirs her milkshake idly; it’s mostly melted now, although she likes it that way. There’s a bit of whipped cream at the edge of Helena’s mouth, so Dinah picks up a napkin. “You have —”

“Oh.” Helena drops her fork and pokes her tongue out, trying unsuccessfully to lick it away, and Dinah rolls her eyes.

“Just — let me.” She reaches across and swipes it away. “There.”

“Thanks,” Helena says, clearing her throat and glancing out the window. “Uh, do you think the car’s done?”

Dinah checks the time. “Yeah, probably. You know, we could probably make it to Texas tonight, if you wanted to. I'm fucking sick of Oklahoma."

"God, it sucks," Helena agrees vehemently. "Sure, let's do it."

_texas_

They reach Amarillo when the sun is low, casting long shadows across the desert and painting everything in gold, but they keep going until they reach Cadillac Ranch. They’re the only ones there, and it’s almost eerie. The desert wind blows dry and cool, stirring up sand, as Helena trails a hand over each car, tracing the graffiti, her lips moving slightly as she tries to read the words. Dinah follows her, unable to shake the unease she feels at being so exposed in the middle of nowhere. They don’t stay long; the stars blink into sight against the endless velvet sky above them as they drive down the highway to the next motel.

Dinah wakes in the middle of the night in tangled sheets and feels, inexplicably, that something is wrong. She fumbles for her phone, squinting at the screen to make out the time: 3:32 AM. The room is dark, but Dinah can still make out the outline of the bed across the room.

It’s empty.

Suddenly her heart is in her throat, and she stumbles across the room to the tiny bathroom. “Helena? You in here?”

There’s no answer, and when she nudges the door open, Helena isn’t inside.

Her mind starts racing to the worst-case scenarios, and Dinah forces herself to take a deep breath before grabbing the room key and opening the door to the balcony.

And Helena’s right there, leaned against the railing; she startles at the sound of the door and whips around, relaxing when she sees Dinah.

“Hey. You alright?”

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.” Dinah exhales, feeling the tension leaving her body.

“I’m fine,” Helena says slowly, sounding confused.

“Well, I can see that,” Dinah retorts. “Woke up and you were fucking gone. Thought you bailed on me or something.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Helena’s voice is earnest, and Dinah feels the edge of irritation ebbing away.

“Yeah, I know. What the hell are you doing outside at three in the damn morning?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Helena says vaguely, but Dinah knows what she isn’t saying.

“Bad dreams, huh?”

Helena nods a tiny bit, and Dinah makes a noise of sympathy.

“Yeah, I get that. Happens to me sometimes.”

“They’d been better,” Helena ventures. “Since we left. I thought… I don’t know.”

But Dinah understands. No matter how far they’ve come, miles and miles from Gotham, they can never really leave it behind. 

They stand there on the balcony, looking out over the desert; the moon casts the desert in a luminous silver glow, and there are more stars in the sky than Dinah’s ever seen in Gotham. It’s beautiful, in a strange, lonely way, and after a moment Dinah finds herself shivering and realizes that she’s barefoot, still in an old tank top and flannel shorts. 

“You’re cold,” Helena notes. “You can go inside.”

But Dinah doesn’t want to leave her alone. “I’ll stay with you,” she says firmly.

Helena studies her for a moment before nodding and shifting closer, just enough for Dinah to feel her warmth, and the desert feels a bit less lonely.

_new mexico_

“God, I fucking hate it out here.”

It’s probably the third time Dinah’s said it since they’d started driving that morning, and Helena says, “Me too,” also for the third time that day. The ethereal beauty of the barren landscape at night has dissipated now that the sun is high in the sky; the road in front of them shimmers in the heat, stretching on endlessly over terrain that resembles something out of a science fiction novel. The sky above them is bleached a washed-out almost-white shade of pale blue and completely devoid of clouds. They hadn’t even considered leaving the top of the car down for the day’s drive, not with the sun beating down so brutally. Helena’s in the driver’s seat, and the dullness of the land around them must be getting to her as well, because she’s going fifteen miles over the speed limit with no signs of slowing down. 

Dinah sighs, paging mindlessly through apps on her phone and frowning when the service bars disappear from the top of the screen. “Damn.”

“What is it?”

“No service.”

Helena hums sympathetically and reaches for a handful of sunflower seeds from the now nearly-empty bag she’d gotten back in Pennsylvania — which feels like a lifetime ago. Her sunburn from that day is fading too, starting to peel around her shoulders, and the cut on her forehead is a pink line. Helena had taken the stitches out herself on a boring stretch of highway the day before after fussing about how itchy they were, because that’s exactly the kind of reckless thing she does without hesitation. 

Dinah idly opens her message app, then her gallery, scrolling through random pictures Cass had texted her and screenshots of clothes she’d thought about buying, starting from the bottom of the camera roll and moving up, deleting anything that’s no longer useful — which is most of it, she discovers. 

At the top, she finds a few photos from the trip: sunsets, and the barbeque they’d had in Nashville, and then the pictures of the two of them at the Nashville waterfront. Dinah pauses over the first one, studying it: it’s a nice picture, the two of them posed and smiling for the camera with the lights shining off the water in the background. The second one is almost identical, and she swipes to see the third and last one, assuming that it will be the same as the previous. 

It’s not, though, and it makes Dinah’s breath catch in her throat. This one must have been taken before the other two, or maybe just after, because Dinah’s looking straight ahead at the camera, but Helena —

Helena’s looking at her. Head turned slightly, smiling just a bit, open and soft in the way she almost never lets herself be in Gotham. The sight makes something twist in Dinah’s chest, and for a moment she forgets to breathe, unable to look away. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Dinah says, turning off the screen, but it’s no use: all she can see is that picture, the look on Helena’s face.

They get off the road early that evening, finding a town near the edge of the state that promises both a motel and a bar — and after a long day of driving, they could both use a drink.

The bar is surprisingly busy, and the locals there eye them curiously as they slide into a booth in the corner. Dinah scans a menu as Helena surveys the room then offers, “I’ll get our drinks.”

“Thanks, H. You know what I like,” Dinah says absently, trying to decide if Helena will tolerate hot wings, or if they’d be better off sticking to honey garlic.

She doesn’t notice the man approaching their table until he’s already leaned against the back of Helena’s empty seat. “Hey, gorgeous,” he drawls. “Buy you a drink?”

Dinah barely spares him a glance. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Aw, come on. Loosen up, have some fun. What do you say?”

She’s half-tempted to deck him right there. “Not interested.”

“Dinah?” Helena appears at her side, a beer in each hand. “You okay?”

Dinah doesn’t have to look up to know that Helena is surely glaring daggers at the asshole across from them.

“Damn, must be my lucky night.” The guy leers at them, then looks at Dinah. “This your girlfriend? Hot. I’d love to get in on that action.”

Helena carefully places the drinks on the table, then straightens up, looks the guy in the face, and says, “Fuck off.”

“Calm down, I was just being friendly.” He nods at Dinah. “Wanna get out of here? Just the two of us?”

“You heard her,” Dinah answers flatly. “Fuck off.”

“Jesus, fine.” He turns away, muttering, “Fucking bitch.”

And Helena’s on him in a flash, shoving him against the wall. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“I said your girlfriend’s a bitch,” he spits, and Helena lets go of him. He stumbles, unbalanced, and then Helena punches him square in the nose, hard enough that blood spurts out.

 _Shit._ So much for keeping a low profile. She’s out of her seat in time to see the guy take a clumsy swing at Helena that catches her on the mouth, but Helena doesn’t even flinch, just knees him between the legs and steps aside as he crumples.

The bar is silent, all eyes on them.

“Fucking asshole,” Helena spits at him, then pushes her hair out of her face and meets Dinah’s eye with a pleased grin. 

Dinah feels herself returning the smile, despite her misgivings, and she motions for Helena to follow her out the door. She’s torn, because he certainly _deserved_ a bloody nose and a kick in the balls, but Dinah had been looking forward to a laid-back night — the likelihood of which is quickly dissipating. 

And the sight of Helena immediately jumping to her defense makes Dinah feel — grateful, sure, but it brings back the memory of their last mission, when Helena had jumped in front of her to take on as many thugs as she could, and that in turn opens up a well of worry and frustration and affection that’s too much to really contemplate right now.

Helena glares one last time at the guy she’d taken down, then at everyone else in the bar, daring them to say anything, before following Dinah out to the car, leaving their drinks untouched on the table. 

It’s probably a bad idea to stay at the motel next door, in case the asshole from the bar decides to retaliate, so Dinah drives past it, heading for the highway. 

“He hurt you?” she asks, glancing over at Helena. 

“Split my lip,” Helena answers, not sounding the least bit bothered. The sun is setting, vivid pinks and purples painted across the sky, and the light is golden on Helena’s face, illuminating the scar on her forehead, the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose — a result of days spent in the Midwest sun — and the fresh split on her lip, the blood beading on the skin there. The sight fills Dinah with a strange, conflicted mix of frustration and fondness warring within her for dominance.

“Lucky his buddies didn’t join in.”

“I could have taken them,” Helena points out stubbornly.

“Not the point, H. Thought we were gonna take a break from fighting, huh? Kinda the whole idea of the trip.” Out of the corner of her eye, Dinah sees Helena frown, pouting a little.

“You heard what he called you. I would have kept going.”

“That’s the problem,” Dinah says. “Gotta pick your battles. People like him just ain’t worth it.”

“But you are.”

The words are quiet but utterly sincere; when Dinah glances over at Helena, she’s staring determinedly out the window. 

Dinah doesn’t know what to say to that, and Helena’s words hang in the air between them for the rest of the night, through dinner and the process of settling in to their motel room, an unfamiliar tension stretching out over them. 

Dinah lies in bed that night staring at the ceiling, mind spinning too fast to let her sink into sleep — she sees the picture from Nashville, capturing the moment of Helena’s soft gaze resting on her; she hears Helena’s firm _but you are;_ she sees Helena’s proud smile marred by a bloody lip as she’d followed Dinah out of that bar. 

She hears the guy ask, _This your girlfriend?_ , and wonders what it means that neither of them tried to correct him.

_arizona_

“I got us coffee,” Helena offers in the morning when Dinah finishes showering. “Iced hazelnut latte.”

It’s a peace offering, and it makes a twinge of guilt run through her, because Helena has nothing to apologize for.

Dinah smiles, infusing as much appreciation and sincerity into her expression as possible, and accepts the cup. “Thanks.”

Helena seems to relax as she nods, and the tension between them dissipates until it’s barely noticeable. As Helena packs, Dinah studies their map, the giant one Helena had gotten back in Pennsylvania — it’s battered, now, sun-bleached and stained with peach juice and coffee, and a few sunflower husks fall out onto the cheap motel room carpet when Dinah unfolds it, but for some reason Dinah doesn’t think either of them will be able to throw it away once they’re back in Gotham. They’re in Arizona, just barely, having crossed the border the night before and settled in the first town they’d come across. Dinah traces the line of I-40 across the state, calculating how long it might take to make it to California, then pauses.

“You know what, Helena?”

“Hm?”

Dinah taps the spot on the map that had caught her eye. “We could go to the Grand Canyon today.”

Helena pokes her head out of the bathroom, holding a toothbrush in one hand. “You want to?”

“Yeah, why the hell not?”

It’s a good enough reason for both of them, so as soon as they’re packed, they drop their room key back at the motel desk and hit the road.

Dinah has seen plenty of pictures of the Grand Canyon, but in person, it’s astounding: rich red and golds stretching out to the horizon in rugged cliffs and ravines dotted with twisted greenery, massive and endless.

“It’s incredible,” Helena says beside her, voice quiet and awed, and Dinah wishes that they’d thought to give themselves more time there — a day or two rather than a stop on their route. 

They get lunch at the cluster of shops and vendors there, then wander the souvenir section until they finally settle on a handful of postcards — one for Renee, one for Harley and Cass, and one for each of them to keep.

When they leave in mid-afternoon, there’s a strange weight to the desert air, choking and oppressive, and the landscape is washed-out and desolate. As the miles pass, Dinah finds her thoughts straying back to the night before; the memories that had kept her awake then return now, causing her hands to tighten around the steering wheel as she presses down on the accelerator as if she can outrun her own mind. 

They drive for three hours before stopping for dinner at a tiny taqueria, then an hour more to yet another motel. Dinah had hoped that sunset would bring cooler air, but if anything the night is even more sweltering than the day. The air is charged, electric, matching the current of tension running through her; their motel room feels claustrophobic, and Dinah resists the urge to step out for a smoke as Helena bangs fruitlessly on the wheezing AC unit in the window.

“Gonna take a shower,” Dinah says once it’s clear that their room isn’t going to get any cooler, but the relief of the cool water only lasts as long as she’s under the spray. As soon as she towels off and gets dressed, she can feel a fresh layer of perspiration rising along her spine, and she sighs — clearly, it’s going to be a long night.

They turn the lights off around ten, and Dinah lies awake for nearly an hour on top of the sheets — it’s too hot to try and sleep any other way — listening to the rattle of the shitty, useless AC unit and Helena’s noises of irritation as she twists and turns, evidently trying to find a comfortable sleeping position. The air feels heavy and thick, pressing on Dinah’s chest and collecting in her lungs, and the longer she lies there, the more she thinks — of a thousand miles of playlists and podcasts and audiobooks and conversations about absolutely nothing, thinks back to that mill pond in Kentucky, the unbidden desire to know the taste of Helena’s lips, and the way Helena’s skin had felt under her fingertips in that West Virginia motel.

Dinah can’t take it any longer, and she clenches her fists hard enough to feel the bite of her fingernails on her palm. _God,_ she needs to get out of this room, because she can’t deny it any longer —

She can’t deny it any longer, can only face the truth or flee, and Dinah Lance has never been a coward.

“You awake?” she asks, the sound of her own voice in the dark almost startling.

“Too hot to sleep,” Helena answers, sitting up. “I can ask for a different room.”

“There’s a pool.” Dinah remembers it suddenly, says it without thinking, and as soon as she does it feels like she’s set something into motion beyond her control.

“What?”

“Taking a shower didn’t help.” Dinah sits up too, her eyes meeting Helena’s across the dim room. “Let’s go for a swim.”

Dinah can’t remember the last time she swam in a pool like this; the sight of the water shimmering an eerie green, lit from beneath by worn fluorescents, brings back hazy recollections of swim lessons in the city pool near their apartment and long summer days in middle school, doing flips off the diving board to impress her friends. It’s familiar and nostalgic, but this pool is deserted and dark, surrounded by plastic lounge chairs and a stack of battered pool noodles pushed off to the side.

Dinah goes first, pushing the gate open and wincing as the hinges shriek in protest. She sheds the t-shirt and shorts that she’d pulled on over her bikini, placing them neatly on the end of a cracked plastic lounge chair at the side of the pool next to her sandals, and eases herself in, stepping down the ladder. Relief comes instantly; the water is cool against her skin, and she pushes off the wall of the pool and does a lazy backstroke to the other edge. Dinah blinks water out of her eyes and rests her elbows on the pool deck.

“You coming?”

Helena’s standing there on the deck, dressed in the camisole and cotton shorts she’d worn to bed, because she hadn’t packed a swimsuit.

(“And you didn’t say anything?”

“It wasn’t relevant!” Helena countered.

“We’re going to the _ocean,_ Helena! It’s pretty damn relevant!”

“Oh.” Helena frowned and conceded, “Yeah, I guess.”)

She hasn’t moved since Dinah got in — was watching, Dinah realizes, watching _her_ — but Dinah’s invitation jolts Helena back to awareness.

“Yeah, coming,” Helena echoes, and doesn’t even bother with the ladder, just sits on the edge of the pool deck, right next to Dinah, and slips into the water from there. 

“Feels nice, right?” Dinah asks, and in lieu of a response, Helena ducks her head underwater and resurfaces, hair plastered flat and dripping. She shakes her head like a dog and grins.

“Really nice,” she agrees, and then twists, diving underwater and resurfacing on the other side of the pool.

Minutes pass in silence broken only by the soft splashes of the water and a low rumble of thunder in the distance, echoing across the desert. Helena does a lap around the pool, switching effortlessly from backstroke to butterfly to breaststroke, and Dinah is content to hook her elbows on the edge of the pool and float on her back, gazing up at the inky-black sky. Helena joins her after a while, treading water a few feet away even though the shallowness of the pool means she could easily just stand. 

“I’m glad we did this,” Helena says, trailing her fingers over the surface of the water.

“Yeah, me too. Beats the hell out of sweating to death in that room.” 

“No, I mean —” Helena swallows, her eyes meeting Dinah’s and holding her gaze. “The trip. You were right; I think I needed to — to get away.”

The scar on her forehead shines silvery in the dim glow of the water, and Dinah can see more clearly than ever the numerous others that mark Helena’s skin, some fresh — the result of fighting in Gotham — and some old and faded. 

Dinah realizes that she hasn’t seen Huntress in days, just Helena — even in the bar, that had been just Helena — and that’s good, she thinks. It’s like a breath of fresh air, to leave the fight behind and just — be. As close to normal as they’ll probably ever get, in motel rooms and diners and the front seat of a rented car. And it’s alright that it’s temporary, because deep down, Dinah knows that they’ll never be satisfied with normal as their default — but once in a while, it’s good to know that they’re more than just their vigilante personas.

“I needed it too,” Dinah says after a moment of silence. “I like getting to know you, H.”

She doesn’t realize how deeply she means it until the words are spoken. Dinah _likes_ Helena, in a genuine way — more than just liking the way she looks, or appreciating her fighting style or any other superficial thing. She likes knowing that Helena can go handfuls of sunflower seeds in the space of an hour, likes knowing how she takes her coffee, likes knowing how meticulous and careful she is in everything she does, from eating pie to divvying up a peach for them to share in the car to merging on the highway to arranging her toiletries in a neat line, largest to smallest, on the bathroom counter. 

The way Helena looks in the morning, stepping aside with a toothbrush in her mouth to let Dinah reach the sink. The way she tilts her head and raises her eyebrows when they’re listening to some random podcast and she hears something that interests her. The way she’d tried so hard to be spontaneous that it ended up with both of them soaking wet with creek water in the middle of Arkansas. The way she knows what Dinah likes to drink, and defends Dinah fiercely without caring that it results in a bloodied lip, and sounds surprised every time she laughs and every time she makes Dinah laugh, and smiles at Dinah with a sweet little grin that shows her front teeth in a little triangle.

The way she looks right now, biting her lip like she’s trying to make a decision, her hair loose with water dripping from the ends, her camisole soaked and clinging to her body, highlighting every curve and hard edge. 

And maybe it’s the late hour, or the dissonance of their presence in a pool in the middle of a desert under clouds rolling in to cover the stars, or maybe it’s just that Dinah’s been putting it off too long to deny it any longer, but Dinah looks at her in that moment and thinks of a million moments stretching along the highway behind them, and knows — she's in love with Helena.

“I need to tell you something,” Helena says, looking determined now, like she’s made up her mind, and doesn’t wait for Dinah to respond before taking a deep breath and saying in a rush, “I think I really like you. As — not just as friends. You probably don’t feel — the same, I guess, so I’m sorry, but I thought you should know —”

“Helena,” Dinah breaks in, instinctively reaching out to take Helena’s hand; her feet are resting on the bottom of the pool again, and Helena is standing too, only inches away, with the surface of the water not reaching far up her ribcage. She tries to find the right words, seeing fear shift to apprehension to hope in Helena’s eyes, and finally says, “I really like you too.”

“You mean, like —”

“Like this,” Dinah says, feeling a fond smile tugging at her mouth, and leans up to kiss Helena — lightly, chastely — before pulling back. “Good?”

“Yes,” Helena murmurs, and kisses her, her hands coming to rest on the bare skin below Dinah’s bikini top. She tastes of chlorine and the ozone tang of desert air, like summer nights on the road, and the half-healed split on her lip is rough against Dinah’s mouth and the tip of her tongue, and Helena’s touch is reverential, fingers gliding down Dinah’s sides and igniting a burning, undeniable warmth in her core. 

“We should probably go in,” Dinah breathes, and a loud rumble of thunder punctuates her words — she hadn’t even noticed the storm clouds swallowing the stars one-by-one. Lightning flashes overhead, illuminating them both for half a second with a brilliance that sears an imprint into Dinah’s vision. 

Helena follows her up the ladder, pausing as Dinah gathers her clothes — not bothering to put them on — and then they’re through the gate again and hurrying back to their room. A laugh bubbles up in Dinah’s throat at the absurdity of it all, and she fumbles the room key out of the pocket of her shorts as a crack of thunder seems to shake the very ground beneath them and rain begins to fall in fat droplets — slow at first, then gaining intensity, and Dinah wrenches the door open before they can get drenched a second time over. 

Once they’re inside, the door shut and locked behind them, Dinah brushes Helena’s hair out of her eyes and kisses her again, slow and sweet, her other hand brushing the strip of exposed skin below the hem of Helena’s camisole. 

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Dinah murmurs, pulling away for a moment and locking eyes with Helena. “Talk to me, baby. We can keep going like this or do more, whatever you want.”

“More.” Helena’s voice is hoarse, awed. “I want more.”

So Dinah takes her hands, guides them to the clasp of her bikini top; she lifts the edge of Helena’s camisole and rucks it upward, exposing smooth pale skin. The sound of falling rain fills the room with a steady rhythm, cleansing and soothing, and the feeling of Helena’s touch is both ecstatically new and as familiar as breathing, the most natural thing and yet utterly remarkable. It’s raw and gorgeous and _alive_ in a way that makes Dinah ache with joy, better than she could have ever imagined, and the sight of Helena flushed and lazy with contentment, tangled in bedsheets, is the most beautiful thing in the world. 

The rain slows to a gentle patter, and the room has finally cooled off by the time they’re pressed together, loose-limbed and sleepy; Helena takes Dinah’s hand and pulls it close, kissing her palm, and though her eyes drift shut, the smile on her face lingers even as her breathing slows with sleep. Dinah feels exhaustion getting the better of her, turning her limbs to lead, but before she lets her eyes close, she takes one last, long look at the woman next to her, traces a finger lightly over Helena’s brow, along the scar there, down the bridge of her nose, over the cupid’s bow of her lips. _Finally,_ she thinks: if a thousand miles have led her to this, then it was damn worth it.

And then, lulled by the warm press of Helena’s body against hers and the gentle fall of rain outside their window, Dinah sleeps.

In the morning, the rain has stopped; the sky is a cloudless, deep blue, and the air feels clean and light. The desert is alive with green — cleansed and revived by the storm.

It feels like the world is new, like it’s beginning all around them.

_california_

“See, they’ve got all kinds of swimsuits, H. What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know,” Helena says thoughtfully, frowning hard at a skimpy bikini printed with the American flag.

“That would look great on you,” Dinah says seriously, and grins at the glare Helena shoots her. “One-piece or two?”

“Whatever fits.”

“Well, I want to see those abs, so…” Dinah pulls a few bikinis off the rack and tosses them in the cart.

She waits outside the changing stall, leaning against the wall and listening to Helena’s muffled curses.

“Need a hand?”

“‘M _fine_ — shit!”

In the end, Helena chooses a retro-style two-piece: high-waisted bottoms and a polka-dotted top.

When Dinah sees it, she raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Huh,” she says thoughtfully. 

“Do you like it?” 

Her initial surprise begins to ebb away — it hadn’t seemed like Helena’s style at first, but then again, Dinah’s discovered over the past week that there’s far more to Helena than she would have guessed, and maybe that includes a previously-hidden fondness for fashion. “Yeah, it’s cute,” Dinah replies, nodding her approval. “Good call.”

“Thanks,” Helena says, looking pleased, and at the register she carefully hands the garment to the cashier to ring up, then takes all the bags of sunflower seeds on display and dumps them on the conveyor belt. She looks up to see Dinah watching her.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Dinah says out loud, then leans in as she slips past Helena to pay and whispers, “Just thinking about seeing you in that bikini.”

The cashier blinks at them, but it’s worth it for the way Helena’s ears go pink as she blushes.

They stop for the night in Maricopa, less than two hours away from the coast, and it seems no different from any other night of their trip — another motel, another diner, another sleepy town with hills edging the horizon.

But this time, the distance between them has evaporated. In the diner, they sit across from each other at a corner booth, and Dinah rests her legs on the cracked red vinyl next to Helena. The menu advertises all-day breakfast, so they each get an omelette and split a Belgian waffle, piled high with whipped cream and strawberries, between them for dessert. Once the plate is empty, Helena licks the last traces of whipped cream from her fork, and when their eyes meet across the table, she lets the fork clatter against the table in her haste to flag down the waitress for the check. 

When Dinah kisses her against the closed door of their motel room minutes later, she can still taste the sweetness of the berries on Helena’s lips.

“Couple days, we’ll be back in Gotham,” Dinah murmurs thoughtfully later that night as they lie in bed side-by-side, one of her hands combing absently through Helena’s hair. “We’ve been gone for — what, five days? Six?” She tries to count back, then gives up — without the rhythms and routines of life in Gotham, the days feel strange and timeless, like they’ve been driving for a lifetime. 

“Are you ready to go back?” Helena asks quietly, and the conversation echoes the one they’d had days ago in Oklahoma, waiting for the mechanic to finish changing the tire on their rented car. Dinah hadn’t been ready then, not quite, but she thinks — tomorrow, maybe. Once they see the ocean, she’ll be ready to turn back. She thinks back to her conversation with Renee outside that dusty laundromat, saying _We’ll know when we get there,_ and realizes that this is where they’re meant to be.

They’ve found what they’ve been looking for, without even really knowing it, and that’s what makes Dinah answer, “You know, I think I am.”

She feels, rather than sees, Helena nod. “Me too. Do you think — do you think much will change?”

It feels vital, suddenly, that Dinah say the right thing; the question holds weight, and not just for Helena. 

“I think,” Dinah says, “we can take it as slow as we need to. See what happens. At the end of the day, I want this with you. Sure, things might change, but — I think it will be for the better. The good things we have, those aren’t going anywhere.”

She’d worried so much for so long that this would complicate things, that being anything more than _just friends_ with Helena would compromise the whole team, but now Dinah is beginning to doubt that, because this feels _right_ — like puzzle pieces sliding into place, like maybe it will make their trio stronger rather than weaker.

“Okay,” Helena replies. “Okay, good.”

“Good,” Dinah echoes, smiling at the relief in Helena’s voice, and then she’s struck by a thought that makes her groan.

“What is it?”

 _“God,_ Renee’s going to be insufferable. Even more fuckin’ smug than usual, can you imagine?”

“Harley will be worse,” Helena mutters darkly, and Dinah makes a face.

“You know, maybe we should take a few more days. Go up the coast, kill some time.”

Helena hums. “Not a bad idea.”

“Yeah? Where’d you want to go?”

“Anywhere’s fine.” 

_As long as we’re together,_ Helena doesn’t say, but Dinah hears it anyway, says it back with a kiss to Helena’s forehead and savors the soft smile Helena gives her in return.

The last hour of their drive the next morning seems like the longest of the entire trip, anticipation stretching the time out. When the ocean finally appears on the horizon, a hazy blue line that blends into the color of the sky, Dinah feels something loosen inside her, a sense of ease, of _rightness,_ taking hold in the core of her being, and when she takes a deep breath, she can taste a hint of sea salt in the air. 

The stretch of shoreline where they end up is peaceful, deserted save for a few beachcombers further down and a sailboat on the horizon. They park in a paved lot at the roadside and head down to the sand; Dinah kicks off her sandals, sheds the t-shirt and shorts she’s wearing over her bikini, and Helena does the same. 

“I was right,” Dinah says, taking in the sight of Helena’s toned body; the bruises on her side from their last fight are faded now, barely noticeable now that a week has passed.

“Hm?” Helena drags her gaze up to Dinah’s face, raising her eyebrows questioningly. “Right about what?”

“That bikini does look damn good on you.”

“Ah — thank, uh, thank you.” Helena nods at Dinah. “And you look — um, good. Really nice.”

“Thanks, babe,” Dinah says softly, and can’t resist lifting up on her tiptoes to give Helena a kiss on the corner of her mouth, because she’s too damn cute, blushing like that. “C’mon, we’ve waited long enough. Let’s go for a swim.”

The sand is warm, but not too hot to walk on, and the ocean is the deepest shade of blue, unfolding out endlessly in front of them. Water laps cold around Dinah’s ankles, the sand shifting under the soles of her feet when the waves pull back. Here at the edge of the ocean, the afternoon seems filled with possibility: to swim, to lie on the sand, to pick up seashells and listen for the sound of the sea in them. 

“We made it,” Helena declares once they’re far enough out that the waves are waist-high. She’s silhouetted against the sun, happy and at ease, hair wind-blown and curling in the salty air.

Gotham is thousands of miles away, and yet here, with Helena just ahead of her, with the sun shining against the waves and the taste of salty air in the back of her throat, Dinah thinks that _home_ doesn’t feel very far away at all, that across all these miles — it’s been with them the whole time. 

There’s a long road ahead of them still, but for now, they can stay here and just _be._

“We made it,” Dinah agrees, and she tugs Helena close, feels Helena smile against her lips as the tide comes in around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of notes for this story, so I'll separate them by state.
> 
> PA: Pennsylvania Turnpike rest stops are, indeed, like malls. Super fun, in my experience. Also, Helena would 100% be That Person who despises sunscreen with every fiber of her being.
> 
> WV: For any of you Schitt's Creek fans — the motel clerk is Stevie Budd (because why not), and she's 100% Sick of dealing with Disaster Gays. She would get along great with Renee.
> 
> AR: From my (admittedly minimal) research, crayfish/crawfish/freshwater lobsters do live in Italy as well as all over the U.S., which is why Helena knows how to catch them.
> 
> TX: Cadillac Ranch is a roadside attraction in Amarillo, Texas (along the classic Route 66), consisting of old Cadillacs half-buried in the sand and heavily graffitied.
> 
> OK, NM, and AZ: Apologies to these states — I'm sure they're more interesting than I made them out to be. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


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